


Empathy won't fit in these cold hands

by GwiYeoWeo



Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst and Feels, Emotional Whump, Family Feels, Incest, M/M, Pining, V is Vergil, not quite a role reversal, the fic where Dante leaves and Vergil stays
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:54:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26326723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GwiYeoWeo/pseuds/GwiYeoWeo
Summary: “I just wanna look, Vergil. I’m not gonna actually leave.” Dante says, pressing his forehead against Vergil’s. “I’d miss you and mom and dad too much.”“Mother left the human world for father,” Vergil points out, staring straight into his reflection’s eyes. It’s how the famous tale of Eva and Sparda came to be told across the Underworld, how a witch willingly gave her soul up and fell from the Overworld to be with a demon, together ruling one of the largest territories in the realm.So Dante gives him his word to never truly leave, that he’ll always come back to Vergil because while his childish curiosity demands to be sated, his heart will always be with his brother. Vergil chooses to believe him, because doing otherwise would do neither of them good.They were born from the same flame, one soul split into two. Vergil thought he'd always have Dante at his side, to grow into their father's mantle and rule the Underworld together.
Relationships: Dante/V (Devil May Cry), Dante/Vergil (Devil May Cry)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 56





	Empathy won't fit in these cold hands

**Author's Note:**

> hey waddup guess who got filled with the sudden need for angst

When they're children, Vergil is always the one to wrangle his brother back home. 

Dante, ever curious and ever restless, bounding with energy that ran rampant like Inferno's ever-burning hell fires, can never sit still in one place for so long, wandering and exploring the vast barren planes of the Underworld whenever he could sneak out from Sparda's watchful eye and Eva's warm arms. He leaps over the rolling desert hills, climbs up and over bone-white ashen trees, treks through thick shoulder-high bogs and swims across the wine-red rivers that mark the borders of their territory. 

But Vergil is always one step behind him, there to grab him by the wrist and pull Dante away from the edge, coaxing him home with promises of a play fight or if that doesn’t work, threats to tell father of Dante’s escape attempts. 

Dante likes to wander, like newborn kindling swaying whichever the wind blows, growing and spreading as far as he can cover. However, he is just as temperamental; sometimes a low, tiny flame on a candlestick or a raging wildfire that incinerates, burning so hot that sometimes even Vergil flinches at him. But that does not stop Vergil from reaching back, to keep Dante grounded. To keep Dante _with him._

Vergil does, for a time. Without fail, Vergil returns to their fortress, twin in tow, sometimes roughed up from their frolicking but always dirty through trekking over craggy lands and burning water. Whatever ire and disappointment Dante may have held from being denied his freedom is kissed away by mother’s lips and patted off by father’s firm but reassuring hand. And whatever still yet lingers, Vergil cleanses away with his own words and touches, brushing his fingers through Dante’s soapy hair and scrubbing the day’s dirt off his back as they share a bubble bath. Dante, sometimes, will take his own revenge, splashing the water into his brother’s face or dunking his head beneath the surface, laughing and teasing as if there were no transgressions just hours earlier and that there would be no more in the hours to come.

They sleep, arms wrapped tight around another, as if they couldn’t bear to be apart despite that Dante will try to leave Vergil again, to explore beyond their father’s heritage and seek out their mother’s — to seek out the thin veil that transcends into the human realm. As if Vergil won’t worry himself thin in fear of being left behind by his other half, won’t trail behind in Dante’s shadow until he can no longer, when that anxiety creeps up his neck and fills him with such a frigid dread that only Dante’s fire can melt, and grasps at his wrist. 

“I just wanna look, Vergil. I’m not gonna actually leave.” Dante says, pressing his forehead against Vergil’s. “I’d miss you and mom and dad too much.”

“Mother left the human world for father,” Vergil points out, staring straight into his reflection’s eyes. It’s how the famous tale of Eva and Sparda came to be told across the Underworld, how a witch willingly gave her soul up and fell from the Overworld to be with a demon, together ruling one of the largest territories in the realm.

“Yeah, but she didn’t have a twin she loved.”

Dante’s grin is so big and full that it’s contagious, bringing out Vergil’s own. Truly, Vergil wants to believe him, despite the small nagging doubt lodged deep into his chest. After all, they’re only made of halves. Half a human, half a demon. Half a soul in each of them when they should have been born as one; maybe then, Vergil wouldn’t feel so empty when Dante’s not by his side. 

So Dante gives him his word to never truly leave, that he’ll always come back to Vergil because while his childish curiosity demands to be sated, his heart will always be with his brother. Vergil chooses to believe him, because doing otherwise would do neither of them good.

  
  
  


But there comes a point in time, a reckoning or a revelation or simply the moment to turn the page, when one can no longer hold onto ill-timed promises made in the follies of their childhood.

As they grow, not only do their years go on but also their individualities and their strengths, their mindsets and their stubbornness that keep on climbing in the same ways that they differ. They hold just as they push, clashing heads and swords and making amends for it in the aftermath, licking each others’ wounds and offering short-lived half-truth apologies. And repeat. They’re magnets, in a sense, clinging to one another when their polarities draw them, or repelling on the days they do not align. 

Until Dante blooms so ferociously, his curiosity burning and aching to be sated, that Vergil has to let him go. When the age of bratty impish nature turns to pure danger and snarls, and the adolescence of their demons take up arms in place of their rosy cheeks and boyish laughter. When Dante’s flames sear higher and higher, his childish impudence giving way to feral fanged grins and Vergil returns it in kind with tooth and claw and curses. 

“Our place here is with father, Dante. How do you not understand? What of humans has you enamored so?” Vergil spits and hisses, grinding his knee in between Dante’s shoulder blades, forcing his brother’s face into the hard molten ground of their territory’s outskirts. He twists his grip on Dante’s wrists, one in each hand, claws digging deep into flesh and pulling dark, dark blood. “Cease that wandering mind of yours.”

“You wouldn’t understand, Vergil.” 

And for all their squabbles, their teeth snapping and tearing flesh, words thrown in the heat of their respective angers, it is the words spoken in quiet resolution that breaks Vergil’s fortitude. Vergil wouldn't understand, Dante says. His own brother, his twin, his other half of their shared soul, wouldn't understand. For all the years they’ve grown together, in their mother’s womb to the hellscape they will one day reign over, Vergil wouldn't understand. 

And Dante is correct. 

They were supposed to rule together, to carry on Eva and Sparda’s mantle when they ceased to carry it. Vergil thought Dante understood that, even if he never voiced it, and in that he realizes all the building misconceptions and mistakes they have amassed, an invisible mountain slowly towering and casting its shadow over him now that he sees it.

Vergil, all through his life, had his own idea of a future that Dante did not share. 

“I wouldn’t.” He speaks in an almost soft whisper that belies the hurt it shreds into him. Vergil lets Dante go but he remains kneeling on the hard ground, eyes staring at the cracks and he wonders how he’s missed it all. 

Dante says nothing for a time, both simply tired and drained in both the soul and body, his fire dying to a low smolder now. They sit there, in the silence that for the first time, stretches painfully between them when before they could bask in the quiet company of one another, and Vergil ponders the what and why. 

When Dante leans into him, shoulder to shoulder, in a wordless exchange that holds the heavy notes of a finality, Vergil shudders at the coldness. 

“I’m sorry, Vergil.” Dante pushes farther — and Vergil allows this because how could he not? — and turns his head to breathe a tired sigh into his brother’s neck, as if they’ve spent more than the years they’ve lived in a constant battle with each other. “I’ll always love you.”

“And I, you.” 

Vergil doesn’t know which hurts more: hearing the lie or speaking it.

  
  
  


He doesn’t have the grace of pondering when they start the trek back, and they see their home burn into ashes.

  
  
  


They have time to mourn later, properly. A grave, a tombstone, a standing relic in their honor, maybe. For now, Vergil lets himself steep in the fleeting moment of victory, Mundus dead at their feet, broken body already chipping away into dust and cinder. Dante holds Mundus’ head, though that crumbles when he tightens his grip on its hair. 

And soon, the adrenaline of cold vengeance and fulfillment crumbles as well, when Vergil unsheathes Yamato and Dante brings out Rebellion. They stare each other down, their father’s sword the divider between them, each watching for the first strike to come. Vergil could continue what Mundus had planned, to conquer all the neighboring territories and crown himself king of the Underworld. Dante knows this, knows what lofty ideals his brother holds. Knows his brother is perfectly capable of bringing them to fruition. Knows his brother can and will trap him here if he allows Vergil the opportunity.

Strange and somber it is, their family legacy that forces them at such odds, inevitably. Dante wanting to escape it, to find the path their mother left behind; Vergil wanting to pursue it, to carry on their father’s name. 

They’ve strayed so far already, Dante so distant from him now yet only a few paces away, and Vergil knows nothing but to push him farther out of reach. He’s already so far now.

So far that it feels like Dante is no longer here anyway.

Vergil raises Yamato. Dante does not flinch. 

Two clean cuts into the air. Here, where the chaos and clash of powers have weakened the veil, enough to tear into another universe.

“Go, Dante.” Vergil’s own voice sounds so foreign in his ears, dripping heavy with an emotion he does not dare to name. It tastes like regret and heartache. He closes his eyes, unwilling to watch his brother’s back turn on him and away.

He hears Dante’s heavy footsteps, closer and closer. Vergil does not let himself even hope that they are for him, that Dante will choose him over the humans. He squashes the brief flicker of a dream, even as Dante wraps a too light hand on the back of Vergil’s neck, bringing their foreheads together in a final farewell. He does not open his eyes even as Dante brushes his lips over Vergil’s own. Too chaste and too evanescent.

“I’ll come back to you, one day.” Dante whispers a promise into his mouth, a bloodless contract between them.

“Perhaps.” Vergil says, voice too even and dull, despite how the words scrape at his throat. “But we both know you’ll never stay.”

  
  
  


Sometimes, in the dark of his halls and in the shadows of wakefulness and sleep, Vergil will let his mind wander, let his legs trace back the paths of their youth. Across the rolling desert hills, past bone-white ashen trees, over thick shoulder-high bogs and the wine-red rivers. He’ll rub his thumb over the tsuba of Yamato, when he knows the barrier between this realm of his and the realm of Dante’s is chipped and silk thin. But he never draws her. 

There is nothing for him there.

So he walks back home, alone, to his throne of blood and cold iron, the taste of both on his tongue.

  
  
  


Vergil may not be allowed his only brother, but perhaps if he had the world, he could fill the empty void beside his heart with it. He could cut that emptiness out, fill it with power instead. So he takes Yamato and slips her in between the space between his ribs, feeling only the smooth glide of her blade through flesh and viscera — the pain is nothing compared to Dante leaving him.

  
  
  


“Vergil —”

“You can call me V.” He tightens Dante’s blood-red coat around his shoulders, fixes his lips into a bitter smile and stares at his brother through the black locks of his hair. 

Dante falls to his knees before him, like a sinner ready to repent to his God. (Like he's broken a promise.) He looks so tame like this, that furious fire within him almost extinguished. V wonders if Dante’s found his answer then, his path, the oasis that he’s been searching for all this time to quell the burning within. He draws Dante closer, takes his face in between his hands, and tries to find the water on Dante’s lips. 

  
  
  


He hungers after Dante like he’s been starved all his life. He’s been denied of his brother for so long, so V takes and takes _and takes._ Every drop of sweat and blood, every shudder and gasp and apologies and promises of amendments all mixed in their intertwined breaths. He knows he doesn’t have long, that this is only a temporary dream. One way or another, he must wake.

“I could be content like this. Live in this mortal shell, let the rest of the world be sucked dry while I selfishly claim what my whole could not. But I know how much you love your humans, more than you ever loved me.”

Dante doesn’t deny it, only buries his face into the crook of his brother’s neck. The lack of an answer is telling and not as painful as V would have liked it to be.

“I never tried to understand you, Vergil. I’m sorry.” Dante says instead, still unwilling to look into his brother’s eyes. 

Perhaps that’s guilt. 

The same guilt that numbs V's lips. _'I never tried to understand you either, brother dear.'_

V sighs, brushes his fingers through Dante’s tangled hair and breathes in his last memories. He doesn’t offer an apology, only because it will not undo their faults and neither of them would have chosen differently, and their future is already set in stone. Tomorrow, Dante will face Urizen, and V’s role will end. Funny, that even as a human, as part of the world Dante had so sought after, Vergil couldn’t remain with his brother.

 _“Nec possum tecum vivere, nec sine te.”_ V muses, remembering the old words from a story their mother once told them. How apt.

Dante laughs bitterly.

**Author's Note:**

>  _Nec possum tecum vivere, nec sine te_  
>  I can live neither with you, nor without you
> 
> (who knew i'd finally use that in a dmc fic)


End file.
